Computer Aided Diagnosis for Osteoporosis Using Multi-slice CT images

The patients of osteoporosis comprised about 11 million people in Japan and it is one of the problems the aging society has. In order to prevent the osteoporosis, it is necessary to do early detection and treatment. The development of Multi-slice CT technology made it possible to perform the three dimensional (3-D) image analysis with higher body axis resolution and shorter scan time. The 3-D image analysis using multi-slice CT images of thoracic vertebra can be used as a support to diagnose osteoporosis and at the same time can be used for lung cancer screening which may lead to its early detection. We develop an automatic extraction algorithm of vertebra, and the analysis algorithm of the vertebral body using shape analysis and a bone density measurement for the computer aided diagnosis of osteoporosis.